Tekenend meisje 1884 - 1952

This roughly textured print was made by Reinier Willem Petrus de Vries, though the date's a mystery. It's dark and a little brooding, isn’t it? Like a charcoal drawing that's been rubbed and worried. You can feel the artist's hand in the density of the black ink, and in those scratched lines giving form to the figure of a hunched-over artist. I love how the dark silhouette contrasts with the lighter, almost ghostly quality of the paper around it. Look closely at the hands— such intensity in the focus! The whole piece hums with the energy of observation. De Vries has a way of showing the process of looking and drawing as almost an obsessive act. The image reminds me of Paula Modersohn-Becker's prints— that same embrace of directness and imperfection. It’s like art, looking at art, looking at art. A kind of conversation without fixed meanings.